I am sitting on the balcony of our school in Bregenz. It's 5:30 pm my time. The ginormous raincloud has receded and the weather here has finally taken a turn for the better. We've seen more sun in the last two days than the previous two weeks combined.
I went to Munich last weekend. I honestly wasn't expecting much from Munich (at least not much compared to Paris or Rome) but there was actually a lot to do and see there. We saw the Olympic[ic park that was built for the '74 or '76 Olympics. It was very pretty. The park was next to BMW's headquarters and museum. The corporate headquarters building itself is in the shape of a four cylinder engine which I thought was pretty cool. We went to a restaurant called the Hoffbrau House. They served beer by the liter. Not kidding. They were huge. And $7 euro a piece. The Hoffbrau House is a big tourist place. Within the first 10 minutes of being there we were talking to people from all over the world- Austraila, Bosnia, Chile, and several Americans. The restaurant is massive, with row after row of banquet tables. You just have to find an open spot and you sit with random people and strike up conversations if you're lucky enough to sit with someone who speaks your language. It was a really neat experience.
We went to Dachau, the concentration camp. A lot of people told me before going that it would be depressing, etc. I wouldn't really say I felt so much depressed as I guess honored. This was a place of so much hurt and pain. So many terrible, brutal stories went on within those fences. I felt like I was almost intruding. On something so personal to thousands of people. In a morbid way, its been the highlight of my trip.
On the way back to Bregenz on Sunday we took a detour to the "fairy tale castle." Its official name is Neuschwanstein. If you have time you should google Mad King Ludwig, the guy who built it. He's a pretty interesting character. The castle honestly did not live up to the hype though. It's the castle that Walt Disney modeled the Disney castle after (in Orlando and the one you see before the credits on a Disney movie). But it took 4 hours to get there by various trains, buses, and horse carriages (not kidding). Once we got there it was pretty neat but the tour was only 35 minutes long. After traveling for most of the day to get there, paying 6 euro for the stupid horse-drawn carriage ride and the 9-euro admittance fee to get in, the 35-minutes were not very satisfying. The castle itself was only one-third completed, and we only got to see one-third of the one-third completed portion. Needless to say we felt pretty jipped. Oh, AND we couldn't take any pictures-- flash or no flash-- once we got inside (because of copyright laws). Of course, I took some anyway, but I had to keep the flash off to not be caught, so they weren't very good. Don't get me wrong, it was a breathtaking castle to look at and all, but if I had a do-over, I wouldn't have gone.
By Sunday evening I was definitely exhausted. I have learned from this weekend that I do not have to be doing something every second of the day when I'm in a new city. The best 30 minutes of my weekend was sitting in Olympic Park watching the paddle boats. It was so peaceful. I hope to be doing more of that in the cities to come.
This weekend I'm going to Salzburg (Sound of Music, Mozart's Birthplace, etc) and then on to Vienna on Saturday. Next weekend I'm hoping to hit up Paris, and then on the last 4 day weekend, Rome (maybe Venice too?). We'll see. This kind of planning stuff stresses me out.
I would be writing more but my computer monitor has decided to quit working. The screen keeps going black and is therefore difficult to do anything on here. Hopefully it'll work again for me in the near future. I'll keep my fingers crossed. . .
